He said of Edward Waverley, for instance, that he was "a sneaking piece of imbecility," and that "if he had married Flora, she would have set him up upon the chimney-piece as Count Borowlaski's wife used to do with him.

I am a bad hand at depicting a hero, properly so called, and have an unfortunate propensity for the dubious characters of borderers, buccaneers, highland robbers, and all others of a Robin-Hood description."[33] In another letter he says, "My rogue always, in despite of me, turns out my hero."[34] And it seems very likely that in most of the situations Scott describes so well, his own course would have been that of his wilder impulses, and not that of his reason.

Assuredly he would never have stopped hesitating on the line between opposite courses as his Waverleys, his Mortons, his Osbaldistones do.

Whenever he was really involved in a party strife, he flung prudence and impartiality to the winds, and went in like the hearty partisan which his strong impulses made of him.

But granting this, I do not agree with his condemnation of all his own colourless heroes.